Assessment of the
SOUTH AUSTRALIANSARDINE FISHERY
August 2016
© Copyright Commonwealth of Australia, 2016.
Assessment of the South Australian Sardine Fishery August 2016 is licensed by the Commonwealth of Australia for use under a Creative Commons By Attribution 3.0 Australia licence with the exception of the Coat of Arms of the Commonwealth of Australia, the logo of the agency responsible for publishing the report, content supplied by third parties, and any images depicting people. For licence conditions see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.
This report should be attributed as ‘Assessment of the South Australian Sardine Fishery August 2016,
Commonwealth of Australia 2016’.
Disclaimer
This document is an assessment carried out by the Department of the Environment and Energy of a commercial fishery against the Australian Government Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries – 2nd Edition. It forms part of the advice provided to the Minister for the Environment and Energy on the fishery in relation to decisions under Parts13 and13A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Minister for the Environment and Energy or the Australian Government.
While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the contents of this report are factually correct, the Australian Government does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this report. You should not rely solely on the information presented in the report when making a commercial or other decision.
Contents
Table 1: Summary of the South Australian Sardine Fishery 1
Table 1 contains a brief overview of the operation of the fishery, including: the gear used, species targeted, byproduct species, bycatch species, annual catch, management regime and ecosystem impacts.
Table 2: Progress in implementation of conditions and recommendations made in the 2009 assessment of the South Australian Sardine Fishery 6
Table 2 contains an update on the progress that has been made by Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA) in implementing the recommendations made in the 2009assessment.
Table 3: The Department of the Environment and Energy’s assessment of the South Australian Sardine Fishery against the requirements of the EPBCAct related to decisions made under Part13 and Part13A. 12
Table3 contains the Department’s assessment of the fishery’s management arrangements against all the relevant parts of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 that the delegate must consider before making a decision.
The Department of the Environment and Energy’s final conditions and recommendations to PIRSA for the South Australian Sardine Fishery 22
This section contains the Department’s assessment of the fishery’s performance against the AustralianGovernment’s Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries – 2nd Edition and outlines the reasons the Department considers that product from the fishery is eligible be included in the list of exempt native specimens.
Table 4: The South Australian Sardine Fishery Assessment – Summary of Issues, Conditions and Recommendations, August 2016 23
Table 4 contains a description of the issues identified by the Department with the current management regime for the fishery and outlines the proposed Part 13 condition and recommendations that would form part of the delegate’s decision to include product derived from the fishery in the list of exempt native specimens.
References 25
Table 1: Summary of the SOUTH AUSTRALIAN (SA) SARDINE FISHERY
Key documents relevant to the fishery / SA Fisheries Management Act 2007SA Fisheries Management (General) Regulations 2007
SA Fisheries Management (Marine Scalefish Fisheries) Regulations 2006
Management Plan for the SA Commercial Marine Scalefish Fishery, PART B – Management arrangements for the taking of sardines (PIRSA 2014)
SA Sardine (Sardinops sagax) Fishery: Stock Assessment Report 2015 (Ward et al. 2015a)
Code of Practice for mitigating of interactions of the SA Sardine Fishery with wildlife – 2015 (SA Sardine Industry Association)
Effectiveness of the industry Code of Practice in mitigating operational interactions of the SA Sardine Fishery with the short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis)
(Ward et al. 2015b)
Operational Interactions with Threatened, Endangered or Protected Species in SA Managed Fisheries – Data Summary: 2007/08 - 2013/14 (McLeay et al 2015)
Ecological Assessment of the SA Sardine
(Sardinops sagax) Fishery – Reassessment Report August 2014
Marine Bioregional Plan for the South-west Marine Region 2012
Area / The SA Sardine Fishery operates in both state and Commonwealth waters, including all the waters adjacent to South Australia to the edge of the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone (Figure 1). For management purposes, the fishery is composed of two zones, the Gulfs Zone (within the Spencer Gulf and the Gulf of St Vincent) and the Outside Zone (the remainder of the fishery outside the gulfs. The operation of this fishery occurs within the South-west and South-east Marine Regions.
Figure 1. Management boundaries of the SA Sardine Fishery (Source: ESD risk assessment of South Australia’s Sardine Fishery, PIRSA).
Target species / The primary target species is Australian sardine (Sardinops sagax). For the purposes of fisheries management, there are four separate biological stocks in Australia, including a single biological stock occurring off South Australia and western Victoria. This is the only stock fished by the SA Sardine Fishery.
Take of Australian anchovy (Engraulisaustralis) is also permitted, however there has been no recorded catch of anchovies in recent years.
Fishery status / The primary performance indicator for this fishery is the estimate of spawning biomass obtained from undertaking a daily egg production method (DEPM) survey. Estimates of spawning biomass between 2003 and 2014 ranged between 152 000–263 000 tonnes (t). In 2014 the estimate of spawning biomass was 244 000 t and the target reference point for the fishery was 150 000 t (Ward et al. 2015b).
Catches have ranged between ~30 000–34 000 t annually since 2007, therefore annual exploitation rates are unlikely to cause the stock to become recruitment overfished and there are no resource concerns for Australian sardines in SA. The SA Sardine Fishery is classified by the SA Research and Development Institute (Ward et al. 2015b) and the Status of Australian Fish Stocks (Ward et al. 2014) as sustainable.
Byproduct species / There are no provisions under the SA Sardine Fishery’s license conditions to retain any species other than the target species (Australian sardines and Australian anchovies), therefore there are no byproduct species.
Due to the specificity of the fishing method, the target species comprise more than 98% of the landed catch. This is consistent with an international review that found purse seine fishing for small pelagic fishes generally has very low to negligible discard rates (Kelleher 2005).
Gear / Sardines are caught with large purse seine nets of up to 1000 metres (m) in length. Most fishing activity occurs at night, with schools of sardines generally located by sonar. Nets are deployed around a school, then pursed and drawn into a smaller area adjacent to the vessel. The catch is removed from the net with a pump and transferred into the hold of the vessel.
Season / For management purposes, the fishing season commences on 1January each year, however the fishery is open year round. Fishing effort and catches usually peak in the period from March to June (Ward et al. 2015a)
Commercial harvest / Since 2005, catch has been stable at around 28 000 – 34 000 tonnes (t) of sardines annually (PIRSA 2014).
Value of commercial harvest / The value of harvest in 2011/12 was $20.7 million (PIRSA 2014).
Take by other sectors / Recreational and Indigenous harvest of the southern Australian stock of sardines is negligible. The majority of commercial harvest of this stock is taken by the SA Sardine Fishery, with much smaller catches in Port Phillip Bay in Victoria (Ward et al. 2014).
Commercial licences issued / There were 14 licences issued in the 2014 fishing season.
Management arrangements / The SA Sardine Fishery is managed under the SA Fisheries Management Act 2007, the SA Fisheries Management (General) Regulations 2007 and the SA Fisheries Management (Marine Scalefish Fisheries) Regulations 2006.
Management arrangements are articulated in the South Australian Commercial Marine Scalefish Fishery, PART B – Management arrangements for the taking of sardines (PIRSA 2014), which includes the harvest strategy for the fishery. These management measures include:
Input controls
Maximum of two vessels per licence
Maximum of two nets per licence
Regulated dimensions for nets
Limited entry
Closed areas enforced by Vessel Monitoring Systems
Output controls
Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC) and Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system, informed by harvest strategy
Catch Disposal Records submitted upon landing on a per trip basis
Daily logbook catch and effort data submitted monthly
Parts of the fishery operate within the Commonwealth Marine Reserve network of the South-east and the South-west Marine Regions.
Export / The majority of product is sold locally, as fodder for tuna farms.
Bycatch / Due to the high specificity of the fishing method bycatch is minimal, with the target species comprising over 98% of landed catch.
Interaction with Protected Species[1] / An independent research program in 2004-05 found high interaction rates between the SA Sardine Fishery and short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis). In response to this discovery, the SA Sardine Industry Association implemented a Code of Practice for mitigating the interactions of the South Australian Sardine Fishery with wildlife (the CoP) to mitigate against interactions with all protected wildlife (including sharks and seals), but with a special focus on common dolphins. PIRSA continued with its independent observer program and commenced compliance monitoring of fishers’ adherence to the CoP. The effectiveness of the CoP has been reviewed by independent scientists and publically reported on annually since 2007 (Ward et al. 2015a).
The CoP has been refined since its inception and appears to have significantly reduced interaction rates. In the 2014-15 fishing season, encirclement rates recorded by independent observers and in industry logbooks were ~8 per 100 net sets, a reduction of 87% since the introduction of the CoP. The CoP has also been a useful mechanism for identifying the most effective measures for safely releasing dolphins that are not observed until after the net is deployed, through quarterly meetings of stakeholders to review interaction reports.
However, despite these encouraging improvements, there have been ongoing discrepancies in catch and effort data that correlate to the times when observers are onboard (Ward et al 2015) and some differences in the rate of dolphin mortalities reported by observers compared to those reported in logbooks. While overt and covert surveillance undertaken by PIRSA indicates fishers are complying with the CoP when observers are not on board, further investigation is required to ensure the total mortality of short-beaked common dolphins in the fishery is accurately understood.
Ecosystem Impacts / While the SA Sardine Fishery operates within both the South-east and South-west Marine Regions, the majority of fishing effort occurs in the Spencer Gulf Shelf Province (Provincial Bioregion 33) in the South-west Marine Region.
The Marine bioregional plan for the South-west Marine Region 2012 has identified that there are three key ecological features present in this area of the fishery. These are ancient coastline at 90-120 m depth, upwellings around the Eyre Peninsula and aggregations of small pelagic fish.
Due to the low impact harvesting method used in the fishery (purse seining), impacts to the physical ecosystem such as the ancient coastline, are negligible. Fishing activity is closely linked to the remaining relevant key ecological features of regional upwellings and small pelagic fish aggregations, however impacts on the food web are unlikely given that take of the target species is limited to ecologically sustainable levels, as prescribed in the fishery’s management plan. Incidental impacts of the fishery bycatch species are minimised through specific industry practices to avoid these species, such as through the Code of Practice for mitigating of interactions of the SA Sardine Fishery with wildlife (SASIA 2015).
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Table 2: Progress in implementation of conditions and recommendations made in 2009 assessment of the South Australian (SA) Sardine Fishery
Part 13 Condition / Progress / Recommended Action /PIRSA to:
a) ensure that SASF participants adopt appropriate measures to mitigate interactions with common dolphins (Delphinus delphis)
b) continue to investigate, develop and implement measures that seek to reduce the level of interactions between the SASF and common dolphins, and
c) continue to monitor the level of interactions with all protected species in the SASF. / The SA Sardine Industry Association first developed and implemented an industry Code of Practice for mitigating the interactions of the South Australian Sardine Fishery with wildlife (the CoP) in 2005.
This CoP was reviewed and refined in 2008 and 2015. The 2015 CoP describes the most effective measures currently known for avoiding and mitigating interactions with common dolphins and contains real-time review protocols for continuous improvement of mitigation measures.
PIRSA continues to monitor the levels of interactions quarterly through a fishery-specific TEPS Working Group. This group monitors the level of interactions and differences between the interaction rates reported by fishers in logbook and those reported by independent observers, while also reviewing international standards for mitigation of interactions with marine mammals. / The Department of the Environment and Energy considers that this condition has been met.
The Department considers that a new Part 13 accreditation for the SA Sardine Fishery specify a similar condition (see Table 4).
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Recommendation / Progress / Recommended Action /1. Operation of the fishery will be carried out in accordance with the Management Plan for South Australian Pilchard Fishery 2005 in force under the South Australian Fisheries Management Act (2007), the Fisheries Management (General) Regulations 2007, and the Fisheries Management (Marine Scalefish Fisheries) Regulations 2006. / Operation of the fishery has been carried out in accordance with fishery-specific management plans in force under the SA Fisheries Management Act (2007) and relevant SA fisheries regulations.